5 ms·

This is now the second or third author i’ve found this year who uses the royal we. Am i missing something? Are we in Cryptonomicon-style Relatively Independent

This is now the second or third author i’ve found this year who uses the royal we. Am i missing something? Are we in Cryptonomicon-style Relatively Independent Sub-Totality mode non-ironically now?

rsynnott 5y ago
Notoriously, Margaret Thatcher used the royal/singular we once ("we have become a grandmother"), so it's not reserved strictly for monarchs. It's at least less jarring than illeism, where one refers to oneself in the third person, I suppose...
codetrotter 5y ago
I figured maybe the author used they/them as their pronouns. But the main page has some testimonials referring to “she”. So idk what’s up with the royal “we”. Sometimes in science, people use the collective “we” in their writing. But like you say, the OP is using royal “we”, so I don’t think scientific writing is the reason either.
- mhh__ 5y ago
  Assuming they're non native it could be a butchered idiom from scientific writing.
- rob74 5y ago
  I'm not a native speaker, but AFAIK if you use "they" to avoid specifying a gender, it's "singular they" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they), so using the first person plural still doesn't really make sense...
- djrogers 5y ago
  First person pronouns aren't gendered, so even if this were a they/them using person, the darren.rogers@cybereason.com' doesn't make sense. What it did do was distract form the blog post, to the point that I stopped reading it. I just kept picturing someone creepily talking to their hairless cat while saying 'we'
- jrockway 5y ago
  Their next blog post talks about being banned from Twitter because they put in a birthdate that made them under 13, so I'm guessing at some point they decided that they were reborn as some sort of collective (Twitter profile says "hardware witches | server maids"). Thus, "we" instead of "I". It's Hacker News. This kind of stuff is pretty normal here.
  - donkarma 5y ago
    no it is not
    - jrockway 5y ago
      It is. You have to understand that the way you see yourself is not necessarily the way other people see themselves. For centuries people hid this from society, but now people are open about it and it turns out that it's pretty OK.
      - bakugo 5y ago
      - donkarma 5y ago
        doesn't make it normal
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
azalemeth 5y ago
I just assumed that the author shared the laptop with their partner.
keyme 5y ago
Ugh. All the way through I was imaging that Siamese twins wrote this piece or something.
- edem 5y ago
  Or maybe somebody with a split personality.
edem 5y ago
I don't know but I've stopped reading the article after 5 paragraphs because of this (and also some other reasons...)
- treesknees 5y ago
  What were the other reasons?
  - dt3ft 5y ago
    I stopped reading because there was no background to anything. I landed there because I saw it on HN, but I had no idea what was going on. After a few paragraphs, I lost interest.
    - Joker_vD 5y ago
      Uh, they started to use an old laptop (presumably that they just had lying around) because they wanted to spend time on their phones less, and here's how it worked out. To be honest that's a fairly common story structure here on HN (with precise details different, of course), what more background do you want or need?
      - dt3ft 5y ago
        I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’d appreciate something along the lines of who they are and why the reader should invest their time to read on.
  - edem 5y ago
    The article had no structure. I had no idea about the context in general and the wording was so weird, I just couldn't follow it properly.
snkline 5y ago
There are other usages of we for an individual. I think the writer is trying to use what is called the editorial we, not the royal we. I will say it's use in that article is rather jarring however. edit: Looking it up, it appear this has a fancy name, encompassing the royal we, the editorial we, and more: Nosism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism
Joker_vD 5y ago
Interestingly, the past blog posts use singular "I" up until the middle of the post "A Story of Microsuites, and Atrophy" from 21st of September, 2021: it starts with "Let me give you a view", but ends with "We lived there for three long years". But diagnosing over the Internet, while a fun pass time for the diagnoser (diagnostician?), is very unreliable.
robotkaput 5y ago
funny, I had a different theory: A concerned tech savvy parent, trying to save its children and spouse from the hazardous impact when using touch screens. > So this thing’s main job is to help us stay off our phone, since touch screens are the hardest on the health of our hands. So lets heal this small children hands with this small keyboard :-)
malf 5y ago
It sounds like a genius solution to shut up people who loudly refuse to use “they” for “oh, purely grammatical reasons, of course”
- bakugo 5y ago
- hprotagonist 5y ago
  “One” is a fairly formal voice, but certainly an option with a long precedent.

This is now the second or third author i’ve found this year who uses the royal we. Am i missing something? Are we in Cryptonomicon-style Relatively Independent Sub-Totality mode non-ironically now?

rsynnott 5y ago

Notoriously, Margaret Thatcher used the royal/singular we once ("we have become a grandmother"), so it's not reserved strictly for monarchs. It's at least less jarring than illeism, where one refers to oneself in the third person, I suppose...

codetrotter 5y ago

I figured maybe the author used they/them as their pronouns. But the main page has some testimonials referring to “she”. So idk what’s up with the royal “we”. Sometimes in science, people use the collective “we” in their writing. But like you say, the OP is using royal “we”, so I don’t think scientific writing is the reason either.

mhh__ 5y ago
Assuming they're non native it could be a butchered idiom from scientific writing.
rob74 5y ago
I'm not a native speaker, but AFAIK if you use "they" to avoid specifying a gender, it's "singular they" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they), so using the first person plural still doesn't really make sense...
djrogers 5y ago
First person pronouns aren't gendered, so even if this were a they/them using person, the darren.rogers@cybereason.com' doesn't make sense. What it did do was distract form the blog post, to the point that I stopped reading it. I just kept picturing someone creepily talking to their hairless cat while saying 'we'
jrockway 5y ago
Their next blog post talks about being banned from Twitter because they put in a birthdate that made them under 13, so I'm guessing at some point they decided that they were reborn as some sort of collective (Twitter profile says "hardware witches | server maids"). Thus, "we" instead of "I". It's Hacker News. This kind of stuff is pretty normal here.
- donkarma 5y ago
  no it is not
  - jrockway 5y ago
    It is. You have to understand that the way you see yourself is not necessarily the way other people see themselves. For centuries people hid this from society, but now people are open about it and it turns out that it's pretty OK.
    - bakugo 5y ago
    - donkarma 5y ago
      doesn't make it normal

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

azalemeth 5y ago

I just assumed that the author shared the laptop with their partner.

keyme 5y ago

Ugh. All the way through I was imaging that Siamese twins wrote this piece or something.

edem 5y ago
Or maybe somebody with a split personality.

edem 5y ago

I don't know but I've stopped reading the article after 5 paragraphs because of this (and also some other reasons...)

treesknees 5y ago
What were the other reasons?
- dt3ft 5y ago
  I stopped reading because there was no background to anything. I landed there because I saw it on HN, but I had no idea what was going on. After a few paragraphs, I lost interest.
  - Joker_vD 5y ago
    Uh, they started to use an old laptop (presumably that they just had lying around) because they wanted to spend time on their phones less, and here's how it worked out. To be honest that's a fairly common story structure here on HN (with precise details different, of course), what more background do you want or need?
    - dt3ft 5y ago
      I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’d appreciate something along the lines of who they are and why the reader should invest their time to read on.
- edem 5y ago
  The article had no structure. I had no idea about the context in general and the wording was so weird, I just couldn't follow it properly.

snkline 5y ago

There are other usages of we for an individual. I think the writer is trying to use what is called the editorial we, not the royal we. I will say it's use in that article is rather jarring however. edit: Looking it up, it appear this has a fancy name, encompassing the royal we, the editorial we, and more: Nosism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosism

Joker_vD 5y ago

Interestingly, the past blog posts use singular "I" up until the middle of the post "A Story of Microsuites, and Atrophy" from 21st of September, 2021: it starts with "Let me give you a view", but ends with "We lived there for three long years". But diagnosing over the Internet, while a fun pass time for the diagnoser (diagnostician?), is very unreliable.

robotkaput 5y ago

funny, I had a different theory: A concerned tech savvy parent, trying to save its children and spouse from the hazardous impact when using touch screens. > So this thing’s main job is to help us stay off our phone, since touch screens are the hardest on the health of our hands. So lets heal this small children hands with this small keyboard :-)

malf 5y ago

It sounds like a genius solution to shut up people who loudly refuse to use “they” for “oh, purely grammatical reasons, of course”

bakugo 5y ago
hprotagonist 5y ago
“One” is a fairly formal voice, but certainly an option with a long precedent.